Robinson's film debut best part of 'Peeples'

Craig Robinson, whose heightened profile on TV's "The Office" has been one of the show's better developments in recent seasons, steps up to topline a big-screen comedy in "Peeples."

His character is a hapless good guy, hoping to make a good impression on his girlfriend's high-achieving family. He's a man trapped, metaphorically, in hostile territory.

The feature is a product of 34th Street Films, Tyler Perry's specialty shingle, though the specialty angle is hard to figure when the material is so broad. More leading roles for Robinson will no doubt follow, and it can only be hoped that he'll find better vehicles for his comedy chops.

As Wade Walker, an aspiring children's counselor who's working as an entertainer, Robinson delivers exuberantly stylized musical numbers that convey bizarre educational messages: He encourages kids who are long past potty training not to pee in inappropriate places.

The performers are up to the wacko task. But one of the movie's key problems is that it only pretends to let loose, its calculated absurdity firmly tethered to the life lessons that lie in wait, ready to wrap everything up all nice and warm.

The meet-the-parents premise finds Wade ready to propose to his girlfriend of a year, Grace Peeples (Kerry Washington), a New York lawyer who has yet to introduce him to her folks. After she takes off for an annual family get-together in the Hamptons, Wade shows up uninvited, determined to pop the question and charm his way into the Peeples' good graces.

Wade's No. 1 problem is Grace's dad, Virgil (David Alan Grier), a federal judge who's so outrageously overbearing, humorless, hypocritical and self-important that he might as well be wearing a sign: "About to be brought down a peg, and taught a lesson or two about what really matters."